


Soul-Tron

by Amelia Abernathy (authr2b)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Multi, Platonic Soulmates, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmate-Identifying Timers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-08-28 23:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8466475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/authr2b/pseuds/Amelia%20Abernathy
Summary: Everyone has a different way of finding out who their soulmate is. Some have timers, some have tattoos, and some don't even get to see the world in color until they meet their special someone. Team Voltron has a fun time figuring out who their partner is after a few mix-ups.(Characters and tags and ships to be added along the way)





	1. Tattoos Are A Pain

Katie stared at the tattoo that had appeared on her arm during her father’s launch. “Mom, is this what happened with you?” she asked. 

“Yes, of course. But your father actually had a different way of knowing I was the one. So be careful about that.” 

“How did dad know?” Katie asked. Her mother sighed. 

“He had a timer on his wrist.” She replied. “Remember we had to explain Matt’s to you?” she asked. 

“Yeah mom.” 

“Well, everyone has different methods. Of course, it’s a very private affair so I only know about a few-” 

“So do you think that I’ll be able to find my soulmate?” 

“Of course darling.” Her mother walked over to where she sat and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Harvey. That’s a nice name. I’m sure they’re a wonderful person darling.” 

Two towns over Hunk scratched at his leg as the tattoo formed. “Wow, what a lucky boy. Finding out at sixteen who your soulmate is.” His mother teased as she walked by. “I didn’t find out who my soulmate was until I was twenty-two.” 

“I’m not lucky, I’m itchy and it’s happening on the hairiest part of my body. It’ll be impossible to read.” 

“I’m sure you’ll be able to decipher it.” She yelled from the kitchen. “We’ll have a special dinner to commemorate this.” Hunk sighed as the itchiness finally abated and took a look at the name. 

“What the heck?” He yelled. 

“What’s wrong dear?” 

“Her name’s Katie!” 

“So? That’s a nice name!” 

“And there are like ten people I know that are named Katie! The name’s so common I’ll never know which one’s her!” 

“I’m sure she’ll help you find out. Harvey isn’t especially common assuming she’s got your name on her somewhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't ask why I chose Harvey. I just didn't think that his parents would be mean enough to name him Hunk.


	2. Never Ignore The Timer

Lance felt confident as he strutted around the meeting hall. His timer had gotten down to only a few moments before he’d gone in for orientation. With so many beautiful ladies, one was bound to be his soulmate. He smiled at each girl that he passed, waiting for them to say something to him. 

He spotted a particularly cute girl talking to an instructor and made his way towards her, thinking she must be the one. A few feet away he bumped into a dark haired boy with shaggy hair. 

“Oh, sorry.” The other boy said. 

“Don’t worry about it.” Lance said, “Excuse me, I have a pretty lady to talk to.” The boy gave him an odd look as he slid over to the girl, interrupting her conversation and flirting with her. 

“No offense,” she said, not bothering to seem polite, “But my timer isn't set to go off for another couple years. So kindly budge off.” LAnce winked at her and slid away to the next girl. 

 

He completely forgot about his timer until later that evening while he was talking to his soulmate. 

“Oh no!” He squeaked. 

“What’s up?” Hunk asked. 

“My timer went off!” 

“Good for you bro. Most don’t meet their soulmate until later on.” 

“But I don’t know who I was meeting when it went off!” Lance groaned. Hunk tried not to laugh. 

“Sorry bro. Maybe try out the student forum?” Hunk suggested. Lance ran over to the computer and logged in, quickly making a new chatroom

 _Cadet20315: Okay, so My timer went off at orientation and I was wondering if I triggered anyone else’s soulmate stuff?_  
_Cadet30613: Mine went off. But my partner had my name on her arm. Sorry bro._  
_Cadet40364: I had mine go off without me knowing._  
_Cadet68325: Same here._  
_Cadet96145: MAke me number four._  
_Cadet40364: Uh-oh._  
_Cadet68325: Yay…_  
_Cadet20315: Well crap._

 

Lance pushed away, tears filling his eyes. “This sounds promising.” Hunk chuckled. 

“Three others had the same problem.” 

“Oops.” 

“So, the next few years are going to be fun with you trying to find your soulmate and all.” Hunk laughed. 

“You have to look for a chick named Katie. I met two of them earlier. Have fun with that.” 

“Don’t rub it in.” Hunk sighed. “We both got off hard.” 

 

“Tell me about it.” Lance sighed, going back to his bunk. “I hope she’s cute. Whoever she is. 

 

Keith looked at the forum post, and then down at his wrist. It would have been nice if it actually said what time you met your soulmate after the timer went off. But it didn’t. So now he had to filter through the memory of everyone that he’d met throughout the day to figure out which one of them had a soulmark that matched up with him somehow.


	3. Shhhh, He's a Sensitive Baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so short, but I'm gonna started on a nice long chapter here in a bit.

A year later the school was buzzing. The best pilot that the academy had seen in a few years had been kicked out because of some “disciplinary issues.” Lance was excited because this meant he got bumped up.

“First day as a fighter class pilot, this is a step in a new direction!” He said to Hunk as they walked towards the bulletin board to see who his new team was. 

“Yeah, but is it a good one?” Hunk asked, “I mean, it’s a tough gig and, a ton of moving.” 

“Relax. I’ll be fine.” Lance replied. 

“I’m more worried about your crew.” Hunk replied as Lance scanned the bulletin. 

“Hey! You’re my engineer!” He announced. 

“Oh, joy.” Hunk sighed. 

“And communication is some guy named Pidge Gunderson.” Lance said, peering at the name. “You heard of him?” 

“Nope.” 

“He’s right behind you.” Came a disgruntled voice behind Hunk. They both turned to look to look at the short communications officer. 

“Well then. Nice to meet you Pidge.” Lance shoved his hand out Pidge stared for a while and then took his hand. 

“Same to you.” Pidge said, eyeing the timer that had slid out from under his jacket, “So you’ve already met your soulmate? Orrrr-” Lance groaned and deflated a little bit. 

"None taken." Lance mumbled. 

“That’s a tender subject.” Hunk giggled. Pidge nodded. 

“I was worried that it stopped as I came up.” Pidge replied, “No offense.”


	4. Color Explosion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not as long as I'd like it but it's something~

The three cadets watched from afar as the men in hazard suits knocked Shiro out. 

“They didn’t ask about the crew…” Pidge said quietly. 

“We need to get him out.” Lance said, ignoring Pidge. 

“Weren’t we watching on tv because we can’t get in?” Hunk asked. 

“That was before we were properly motivated, we just need a distra-” three giant explosions of fire and sand went off in the distance, scaring the stew out of Hunk. 

“Were those aliens?” He asked, scared to death. Pidge looked into the binoculars. 

“They were a distraction for him!” She said, Lance snatched the binoculars away and looked at who she’d been pointing too. His blood started to boil when he saw the familiar brown hair and red jacket. 

“He’s not outdoing me this time!” Lance yelled, tossing the binoclars over his shoulder for pidge to catch and running off down the hill. 

“Who is it?” Pidge asked, confused as she grabbed her backpack and Hunk. 

“Keith!” Lance replied. 

“Who’s Keith?” Pidge asked. 

“Are you sure it’s Keith?” Hunk asked. 

“Positive, I’d know that mullet anywhere!” 

“WHO’S KEITH?” Pidge yelled, but got no answer. 

Inside the tent, Keith was knocking men down left and right to get to whatever they were hiding, which gave time for the other three to run up. He opened the door and saw the body on the pad. 

He beat them up, recognized his old friend, and went to take him out. Suddenly other students came out, he knew with good intentions but they’d probably get him caught. One of them helped him drag Shiro out to his hover-bike, and for some reason all three of them got on. 

“Is this big enough to support all of us?” Hunk asked. 

“ _No._ ” Keith replied sharply. But the Garrison was getting close so he revved it up and got the hell out of there. Hunk provided some color commentary on what was happening behind them until Keith flew them off a cliff. That got everyone to shut up until the reached his cabin. 

Lance once again helped him support Shiro, and he went inside and plopped the pilot down on the bed. Keith then shoved Lance into the main room and glared at the other two that were inside his house. 

“What are all of you doing here?” He asked. 

“What are _you_ doing here?” Lance asked, trying to sound cool. 

“This is my house, idiot.” Lanc opened his mouth to say something, looked around, and closed it. 

“We just wanted to help Shiro.” Hunk said. 

“So you nearly wreck my attempt at trying to rescue him?” Keith asked. “You know I wouldn’t have had to worry about getting followed by Garrison if you hadn’t shown up.” 

“We were going to save Shiro too!” Was all Lance could muster. 

“Okay,” Pidge said, getting between the two boys. “We’re all tired, we’re all stressed, and Hunk needs to find a toilet before we all have to watch him hurl. So let’s just chill out and find the bathroom, huh?” Keith pointed towards the bathroom and Hunk sped off towards it. Lance stormed outside to get away from them, and Pidge plopped down on the couch for a nap. 

 

Shiro followed along behind the cadets as Hunk lead them towards something. The piece of Voltron he’d been told was on earth, maybe. He looked up at the sky as Pidge observed how nice it was, and just saw an expanse of gray. He looked back down at the canyons and their yellows and oranges and reds and got depressed. 

He’d never been able to see blue. It was just varying shades of gray to him. He’d thought for the longest time that it was because he was colorblind, until he met someone as a cadet that couldn’t see browns and said it was a soulmark. Her parents hadn’t been able to see green and purple respectively. 

It was still odd for him since his parents had had the extremely common timer on their wrists. He wondered if he’d ever get to see blue. He couldn’t really care less about finding his soulmate, but he wanted to see the world in full color. 

Twenty minutes, a ride across the solar system, an alien gunfight, and portal hole jump later, they set down on a planet and left the Blue (grey) lion. The castle in front of them was a shiny silvery grey, with more glowing grey highlights. Shiro wondered if the whole damn place was blue. 

They went inside and followed a bunch of lights through the castle. Everyone but Hunk seemed to associate it with a horror movie as they all kept quiet. 

They were lead into a large circular room. Two pods came out of the floor, one right where Lance was standing. Everyone stared as it opened up and fog bellowed out. A lady fell out, and then suddenly Shiro’s world exploded in a burst of color. The lights on the wall were suddenly a bright color he’d never seen before, as well as parts of the woman’s dress, but most of all her eyes, which were looking around. Shiro decided right there that her eyes were the most beautiful shade of blue in the universe. 

Her grabbing Lance by the ear and then twisting him around until she had all the leverage just made him fall harder. 

Allura, on the other hand, was mildly concerned and happy at the same time. Her life had always been grey, but now there was color everywhere. She’d seen her soulmate, the problem was that she’d seen about five people at the same time. 

Also there was the fact that she didn’t know where she was or if her father was okay, that was important too.


	5. MASS CONFUSION

Allura sent the paladins out and watched as they entered their respective wormholes. Once Keith left the bridge she face Coran. 

“We’ve got a problem.” She said, twisting her hands. 

“Well, yeah,” Coran said confused, “The Galrans are still alive and after us and-” 

“No, not that,” Allura groaned, “I can finally see the colors.” Coran frowned. 

“But isn’t that a good thing?” he asked. 

“I don’t know which one I saw first.” she said, Coran’s eyes grew. 

“OH, yeah, that’s going to be a problem.” He said after a moment. “I’m not sure about humans, but most of the other races have more varied ways of finding their soulmates.” 

“And there’s five of them.” Allura groaned, holding her head in her hands. 

“I’m sure we’ll figure it out.” Coran assured her, putting his hand on her shoulder, “Give it a week, if they don’t come to you, then you can ask them.” Allura sighed. 

“Alright, we have more to focus on as it is.” She said, putting her hands on her hips. 

 

She breathed a sigh of relief as the Galran ship crashed to the planet’s face. “They did it.” She sighed. Now she could focus on figuring out who her soulmate was, and she prayed it wasn’t the one piloting the blue lion. 

Shiro, meanwhile, leaned back in his seat as his lion separated itself from the rest. He had to figure out this whole Soulmate thing. Beyond anything mandatory, she hadn’t even talked to him. She hadn’t indicated that she’d had a similar reaction. 

He remembered a teacher saying that some Soulmates were only friendships, and that was triggered in one or the other, not both. Was it somehow possible that she was only going to be his friend? No more? 

He decided to put it to the side for the time being. If she’d had a similar reaction then she’d come to him about it. Assuming she didn’t have a timer, then she’d be chasing after Lance for the next month, and he probably wouldn’t tell her any different. 

They pulled in and dispersed to bedrooms they each claimed for themselves. Coran spent the next few hours doing diagnostic checks on all the systems, while Allura rested up after using her own energy to power literally everything. 

Hunk pulled down his socks and stared at the name on his leg. He wondered if he was ever going to find his soulmate. Of the many Katies he met at Garrison, all of them had either found their soulmate, still had time left, had a different name on them somewhere (some refused to show him), or they just plain had a completely different mark that all screamed “ _Hunk is not my soulmate!_ ” And at this rate, him going back to earth didn’t look like it was going to happen anytime in the near future. He changed into his pajama and pouted for a while before going to bed. 

The tattoo on Pidge’s forearm lay forgotten. She’d know if she met someone named Harvey, but he wasn’t on her mind very much. Her brother and father came first. And as far as she was concerned, she could meet him once and never see him again if it meant she could have her family whole again. 

Lance wondered if he could convince Allura that his timer had gone off when she met him. She wouldn’t know otherwise after all. Nobody knew that his timer had gone off a while back. Except, he reminded himself grimly, Pidge and Hunk, and neither of them seemed very interested in helping him get settled. 

Keith had long given up on finding his soulmate. He figured if he hadn’t found them by now, there wasn’t much else to it. 

Shiro was lost in thought over Allura’s eyes.


	6. I Can't Think Of Any Puns For This

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I'll update more regularly!"   
> *one month later* 
> 
>  
> 
> Sorry guys, video games kinda took over for a bit there... At least I can Shiny hunt in pokemon now.

A week passed and these idiots still had no idea of what was going on. Lance was still flirting up a storm with Allura trying to convince her that he was supposed to be with her, Shiro still hadn’t said anything to her, and Allura was just too busy fixing up the place to actually try and figure out which one of the paladins had triggered the colors. 

At the end of of the week Allura slumped into her chair and took in the colors. “I don’t have the time to snoop.” She sighed, “What do I do?” 

To which came a squeaky reply. She looked down at her lap and saw the four mice. 

“You want to help?” She asked, and they all nodded, “Well, it would help a bit.” They each saluted and ran off to begin their new spying mission. 

The mice each decided that they should start looking from the legs up. So they went to watch Hunk from various angles as he went throughout the castle, hoping they would each see something the others didn’t. 

After a few hours watching him cook, his sock fell down slightly and they saw “tie” on his leg. They sent the smallest mouse to gradually pull down the sock without him noticing. After about twenty minutes, they revealed “Katie,” and decided that he was not Allura’s soulmate. 

 

Lance was harder to handle. Partly because while they were watching him the Galrans broke in and he was rendered unconscious, meaning he wasn’t able to actually say much. Very much to the delight of half the ship. 

They knew that all the zeroes meant something, but didn’t know what until five days after he got out of the sleep pod. 

They covertly followed him into Hunks room, where he plopped down on the opposite bunk and started going on and on about Allura. They were starting to think that maybe Lance was her soulmate when Hunk replied to his ramblings with “You realize your soulmate is still probably back at the garrison right? 

“Yeah, but Allura would make for a wonderful substitute. And there’s nothing to say that your soulmate is actually _the love of your life ___some of our teachers share soulmate marks with their best friends. Maybe Allura’s the love of my life and whoever I was supposed to meet a while back is actually just supposed to be my good friend?”

_“Whatever helps you sleep at night.” Hunk snorted._

_The mice looked between themselves and nodded. Allura’s soulmate weren’t the legs of Voltron._

_They slipped out of Hunk’s room and ran to report to Allura._


	7. The Short Arms

The mice took. A small break the next day to reward themselves for vigilantly watching the boys. The next morning they started watching Pidge, and finished like an hour later when her arm slipped out of bed and revealed “Harvey” while she snored. 

They moved on to watch Keith, who also had the timer like Lance had. 

They were forced to stop as team Voltron got ready to free the balmarans and care for Allura. 

 

“Did you press the anti gravity switch?” Pidge asked, looking over at Hunk as they floated upwards. 

“There’s no anti gravity switch,” Hunk scoffed, but then his face fell, “Is there?” Pidge reached out and waved her arms at her control panel, but couldn't reach. 

“Curse my short arms!” She huffed. 

“Harvey?” Hunk asked, looking at her arm. She glanced down, her sleeve had floated up and revealed the tattoo. 

“Oh yeah, I forgot about this thing.” She said. 

“When did you get it?” He asked. 

“Couple years back, I can’t remember exactly. It got shoved to the back of my mind when dad and Matt went missing.” She said, looking around for a solution to their current problem. 

“Is Pidge your real name?” He asked. 

“Nah, I pulled it out of my butt so I could get into Garrison.” 

“Your real name wouldn’t happen to be Katie, would it?” That stopped her in her tracks.

“That’s a scarily accurate guess.” Hunk’s eyes grew and he pulled down his sock, revealing her name on his calf. 

“How did you get Hunk out of Harvey?” She asked. 

“Some aunt gave it to me a while back and it stuck.” He admitted. 

“This is all cool and stuff, but we kind of need to stop floating before we can figure the tattoo thing out all the way.” Hunk nodded and they began trying to restart the gravity. 

They didn’t fix it, but the gravity turned back on when the door opened.


	8. Cluless Idiots

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I'm glad everyone seems to be enjoying my fic, I've been on this site for four years and this has gotten more of literally everything than any fic I've ever written. 
> 
> Normally I try not to self promote, but I have an etsy shop where I sell little bracelets and anklets and stuff, and I have a few Voltron themed items if you want to support me outside of AO3, then checkout https://www.etsy.com/shop/GeekyPride

Once everything was chill again, the tiniest mouse and the fattest mouse slipped out of Allura’s room to check in on keith and start the spying process. 

They found him and followed him as he looked around the hall. He finally came across Lance and flagged him down. 

“Hey, I noticed your timer earlier, who’s waiting for you back home?” He asked. 

“No idea,” Lance sighed, “It went off at student orientation and I didn’t notice until afterwards.” Keith’s eyebrows raised. 

“Huh, same here.” They stood and stared awkwardly at each other for a moment. 

“Totally a coincidence.” Lance said. 

“Yeah, totally.” Keith replied quickly, and they parted ways. The two mice exchanged looks and ran back to Allura’s room. 

She was sitting in a chair with her head in her hands while Shiro tried to calm her down. They climbed up her dress and squeeked at her to get her attention. She put her hands down and watched as the mice ran between her and Shiro. Shiro quietly watched their antics as they rand over her lap. But when it became obvious that neither of them were getting what they were saying. 

So one mouse put it’s head fur into a mini bun while the other one fluffed it’s hair forward, pointed at Shiro, and then hugged the bun mouse. 

“Altean mice are far more intelligent than earth mice.” Shiro said, “The most intelligent thing I’ve seen them do is navigate a maze to find cheese.” 

“Shiro,” Allura said, looking up at him, “Did something happen when you saw me?” She asked. 

“Well the castle came back to life-” 

“No,” Allura sighed. “I mean, did you have a timer that went off or-” Shiro nodded and leaned back. 

“I uh, started seeing the color blue, why’d you ask?” 

“Because I fell out of the pod and suddenly started seeing colors for the first time in my life.” Shiro’s heart started to race. 

“Oh?” He prodded. 

“I wasn’t sure who it was at first, I hadn’t been able to tell who I’d seen first, and I had other things to get to. And the mice started snooping around, and apparently you’re the only one that didn’t already have a soulmate.” She said quietly. 

They sat in silence for a moment, “Does Coran know that you-” 

“Yes, he does.” 

“Should we tell him?” 

“Might as well.” 

“Should we tell the rest of the team?” 

“No chance.”


	9. F*cking Finally

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's taking so long between updates, things came up. I'm going to try and update more often.

“I don’t see how anything is supposed to be different between us. I mean, neither of us has felt any sort of romantic feelings and we’ve been in a castle together for like what, two months?” Pidge said. 

“Yeah, but, aren’t soulmates supposed to be together if they both have a mark?” Hunk asked, watching pidge fool around with her laptop while he cooked. 

“Who says that? Either way, I don’t have time for romance, I need to find my family. So if you want anything like that, you’re gonna have to wait a while.” Pidge replied. “No offense.” 

“None taken.” Hunk replied. Pidge looked over her laptop with a glimmer in her eyes. 

“Either way wouldn’t you like a shot at Shay first.” 

“It’s not _like that_.” Hunk grumbled. 

“Suuuuure.” Pidge teased. 

“It really isn’t Pidge.” 

“No, you just went way out of your way to make sure you could get back and rescue her.” Hunk opened his mouth to protest, but decided it was time to stop humoring her. 

 

Keith looked at the timer on his wrist and thought about Lance’s timer. A vague memory resurfaced, of the two of them bumping into each other at orientation before Lance came to have such a bad attitude towards him. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. 

He couldn’t remember meeting anyone else, Lance was the only one he knew he made contact with. There was probably someone that he’d talked to, but if they hadn’t found them and he was stuck in space for god knew how long… 

He pushed away from the wall and began walking down the hallway. He found Lance’s room and began banging on the door. The door slid open and Lanced glared back at it. 

“Why not just bring a ram to smash my door down?” Lance asked angrily. 

“We need to talk.” Keith said, slipping under Lance’s arm and into the room, “Close the door.” Lance stuck his tongue out but closed the door anyway. 

“The cheese do you want?” LAnce asked. 

“At the orientation, how closely did you watch your timer?” Keith asked, startling Lance. 

“Uh, about every other minute for a while. Then partway through I stopped for some reason.” Lance said, wracking his memory. 

“How much time was left when you last saw it?” Keith asked. 

“Uh, a minute? Maybe? Not even?” Lance said, scratching an itch on the top of his head. 

“Who did you meet after that Last check?” 

“There was a girl with another ten years left, but that was actually probably long after it ran out, before her…” Lance trailed off and looked at Keith. 

“Oh, oh no… Ohhhh nooooo….” Lance said, covering his face, “I ran into you…” 

“Um…” Keith said, not knowing how to react. 

“Please tell me yours went off earlier-” 

“I checked it before and had some time left, and then checked it again after a forum post was made.” Keith said, “So… What do we do now?” Both boys stared at each other for a moment. 

That moment slid into another and then another. 

Eventually Keith sighed and looked down, “Maybe, we can just not tell anyone and figure this out ourselves. Get to know each other I guess? I don’t know, we just can’t tell anyone else. They’d get involved and make it even weirder.” 

“Agreed. Now get out please, I need to cope.” Lance said, pointing towards the door.


	10. Tea Break

“Well at least it wasn’t one of the younger Paladins.” Coran said with a sigh as he and Allura watched the Paladins train. 

“Is this normal? Interplanetary soulmates?” Allura asked. 

“I wouldn’t say normal,” Coran said, “But it is by no means unheard of for an Altean on a diplomacy mission to find their soulmate on another planet.” They watched for another silent moment before Allura looked back to Coran. 

“Do you think it’s wise for us to go forward with a relationship? We’ve got to fight the empire, and it would be a distraction-” 

“It wouldn’t be harmful, we’ve got a long journey ahead of us and none of it should be borne alone. Neither of you would let it distract you when your complete focus is needed, so I see no issue with it. However, I wouldn’t let the younger paladins know. It might affect their decision making.” Coran said. 

“We weren’t going to tell them in the first place.” Allura said with a laugh, “Though for an entirely different reason.” Coran laughed. 

“I’m sure they’d give you no small amount of grief for it.” He said as the paladins finished up, “But if things get further along, I implore that you learn to lock the door.” Allura frowned at him. 

“Are you saying that someone would come into my room without permission in the first place?” 

“I have seen the younger paladins barge into each others rooms over lost socks, I would not put it past them to barge into yours during a compromising moment.” Coran explained. Allura looked down over the paladins. 

“I can’t deny your point. Perhaps I should get into the habit now.” 

 

Allura snuck out after everyone had gone to bed and slipped into the kitchen. She’d had a lot on her mind and decided to distract herself by having a cup of tea. Of course, she could have had one earlier, but Lance and Hunk had dominated the kitchen and she hadn’t felt up to that type of distraction. 

She made her way around and prepared a pot of tea, turned around to take it to the table, and started when she saw Shiro in the doorway. 

“How long have you been there?” she gasped. 

“A minute, I heard sounds in the kitchen and came in to see what they were.” He said. 

“I’m sorry to disturb you, I didn’t realize there was anyone this close to the kitchen…” Allura said, looking away and walking to the table. 

“Nobody does, I just couldn’t sleep so I decided to wander around and heard you.” He said, still standing somewhat awkwardly in the doorway, arms crossed. 

“Well, perhaps you’d like to join me for a cup of tea? I find it helps with restlessness.” Allura offered. Shiro looked between her and the tray. 

“If I’m not going to disturb you.” He said timidly. 

“Not at all.” Allura used her foot to push out another chair. Shiro nodded and walked over while she poured them both a cup. 

“I don’t normally drink tea, I’m more of a coffee person,” Shiro said, “But I’m curious about Altean tea.” Allura frowned. 

“What’s coffee?” She asked. Shiro sniffed the tea and considered how to explain it. 

“It’s kind of like tea, but instead of dried leaves and herbs it’s a bean that’s been roasted and ground before brewed.” Shiro said, “I’m not sure if that makes sense but that's the only way I know how to explain coffee. 

“I think it makes sense.” Allura said with a smile over her cup, “But it’s good to know that tea is quite literally universal.” 

“I guess that’s one way to think about it.” Shiro laughed before taking a sip. Whatever was in it reminded him of a raspberry, if a very earthy raspberry. 

“You lot even fooled me when I came out of the pod. Just for a moment mind, but I thought you were Altean. Between the colors and the shock of coming out of the tube I mistook all of you.” She said, “And then I realized…” 

“I’m sorry.” shiro said, making her laugh. 

“There’s no need to apologize. If it had been anyone except Lance I would have apologized for my behavior and twisting arms. But he’s annoyed me enough that I feel a touch justified.” She confessed, making Shiro laugh as well. 

“I don’t think there’s going to be a way to get that to stop, so at least you got that out before you got to know him.” He said. 

“My thoughts exactly.” She said, looking into her cup, “Though I feel the need to apologize to you, now that I’m thinking about it. I should have just plainly asked everyone about the soulmarks instead of toying about and having the mice check for me.” 

“You don’t need to apologize. I’m the one that was stupid and didn’t say anything when I knew what had happened.” Shiro said, “So don’t worry too much about it. So I’m sorry for not saying anything.” Allura smiled. 

“Well. I guess that neutralizes out, doesn’t it?” 

“I guess so.” Shiro said, taking another sip of tea. 

“Is the tea to your liking?” Allura asked as he drained a good portion of his cup. 

“Yes, actually. I don’t know that I could drink it everyday like I drank coffee, but it’s good.” he said, and she beamed at him. 

“Well I’m glad you like it.”


End file.
